The exhibition encompasses canvases, sculptures, cardboard works, neon light, photogravures and textiles, and an example of Rauschenberg’s earliest metal paintings, produced during his seven-year international cultural exchange project between 1984 and 1991.
In the first gallery survey dedicated to the project since its conclusion, many works are shown publicly for the first time since 1991. The Rauschenberg Overseas Culture Interchange (ROCI) foregrounds the artist’s conviction in art as a force for positive social change, along with the role of travel as a key catalyst for his characteristically experimental approach to materials and techniques.
The ROCI works are contextualised with archival materials, including a selection of the artist’s black-and-white photographs, taken as source material during his travels across ten countries: Mexico, Chile, Venezuela, China, Tibet, Japan, Cuba, the Soviet Union, Germany (Berlin) and Malaysia. Together, these elements offer an unprecedented overview of one of the most ambitious and wide-reaching artistic interchanges of the late-20th century.
